Word on the street is
by Hiruma Youichi
Summary: Collection of things that happen in every day Naruto life.


Warning: this contains HUGE manga spoilers. So those not up to date, please refrain from reading. Trespassers will be spoiled. Survivors will be spoiled again. By the way, whoever can guess what game the Akatsuki are playing win e-cookies!

Disclaimer: Naruto is entirely the work of Masashi Kishimoto and not me.

**Word on the street is…**

It's a normal day at the Akatsuki hideout AFTER Sasori was dead. Yup, it was a normal day.

"I've got pair of fives...yeah." Deidara played his two cards on the pile.

"Pair of Kings," Hidan continued.

Kisame muttered something about crazy religious maniacs who can't play for nuts before passing. "So, what do you think about Sasori?"

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "Well, he's dead. Can't you be more specific, Kisame…"

Kisame looked over at Kakuzu who had also passed. "Well, I mean, what do you think of him now that you know a 14-year old Chuunin girl and a hag who's couple of thousands years old beat him."

"Well, in fairness, that old hag was probably as strong as a Kage, and that girl has an antidote to Danna's poison...yeah." Deidara played a pair of aces while Hidan frowned.

"You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah…But I wanted to…Yeah…"

"You'll never win a game, Hidan." Kakuzu looked pointedly at the silver-haired Akatsuki member.

"I'll win a game no matter how I have to do it…buying you dinner? I might as well just give you all my money."

"I don't mind," Kakuzu replied.

"Are you passing or not, Hidan?" Kisame this time.

"Fine, pass," Hidan grumbled. "Back to Sasori…I heard that the hag was his grandmother, I expect she'll know a thing or two about his tricks. So he was against quite a bad match-up, as a matter of fact. Still, shit happens, deal with it, yknow?"

"Everyone passes, and I believe I have a full house…yeah. Cough up…yeah." Deidara grinned.

Groans echoed across the whole cave as Deidara just became richer and three others poorer.

"Well, from what I hear Sasori just suddenly stopped using that attack that was bound to kill from his puppet. That was a moment of stupidity." Kakuzu pointed out.

"I'm pretty sure he still had 200 or so puppets left, too…yeah."

"And he let himself get killed in the end, didn't he?"

"Well, all in all, I'd think that no matter how much you went easy, and how much strong and well-matched your opponents were against you, getting beaten and killed by a 14-year old chuunin and an old hag simply doesn't sound good for your reputation."

Kisame whistled. "As usual, Itachi gets the final say. Anyone up for another round of cards?"

"Only if Deidara doesn't play," everyone said at once.

Deidara muttered something that kids are highly discouraged to learn about.

"What exactly IS Itachi's weakness? If we could figure that out, we'd be a lot less worried about Naruto getting captured."

Tsunade was currently in her office and discussing matters with the 4 Elite Jounin teachers that we all know and love. More specifically, they were trying to find out just HOW you beat our favorite misunderstood homicidal maniac otherwise known as Uchiha Itachi.

"Let's list down his strong points first. He's got a three tomoe Sharingan that makes him seem 3-4x faster than usual thanks to the pre-cognition, he's got the quite possibly the fastest hand seal speed in history, he can copy your jutsus with the Sharingan, an unblockable Genjutsu, exploding Kage Bunshins, genjutsus castable with a single finger, an absolutely ginormous Goukakyuu…et cetera." Kakashi said.

"Frankly, rather than say that Itachi has a weakness, we should find out which part of his skill set isn't perfect or close to perfect and try to attack from there," Kurenai pointed out.

"That's the problem with Itachi in the first place. He's very well rounded and has virtually no weak spot…the only way to actually beat him, no matter how dumb it may sound, is to simply be stronger than him. He's extensively trained every part possible, even shuriken throwing." Asuma lit his cigarette.

"Maybe if we blitzed him with a huge amount of shinobi?" Tsunade proposed.

Kakashi frowned through his mask. "He could always leave an Exploding Kage Bunshin behind and wipe them all out."

"Maybe if I opened the gates and suicided together with him?" Gai said.

Everyone turned around and stared at Gai, who was acting as though he had not just morbidly suggested that he would suicide together with Itachi.

"What. It IS an option and frankly, I wouldn't mind doing it as long as Lee's a great ninja by then."

Kakashi shook his head a bit to get the morbid pictures out of his mind. "All this talk is seriously depressing. Anyone up for some sake?"

"Hell yeah." Tsunade stood up and started taking out some money.

"Not for you Tsunade-sama. Shizune-san _said_."

Tsunade grumbled for quite a while but eventually gave in. And Kakashi, Kurenai, Asuma, and Gai, proceeded to get a nice bottle of sake, before going back to do whatever they want to do.

For those who think that this is totally out of character for the characters to hold these kinds of meetings, they do it all the time. The problem is that nothing productive ever comes out of these meetings.


End file.
